


Cost to Cure

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His brain wouldn’t stop whirring, all thoughts set to Danny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cost to Cure

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I? ;) Tag to 3.06, naturally.
> 
> Cost to Cure: If a home is in the process of renovation, remodeling, or an addition; or if there is deferred maintenance or a repair issue, the appraisal will include a cost to cure. Cost to cure is an estimate of what it will cost to repair or complete the property.

He wouldn’t deny that he’d needed the beer. A pleasant buzz coursed through him, but Steve couldn’t fully appreciate it. It had been nice of Cath to invite them to the Hilton for a few drinks to put a cap on what had been an intense day. They had, after all, averted a major terrorist event. Twice. He looked blearily at the bottle of beer in front of him, watched a drop of condensation slide down the side and thought only of the sweat pouring down Danny’s face as he faced imminent, bloody death. Steve had plenty of cause for celebration, he did, but neither his head nor his heart was in it. It felt hollow without Danny there. While he wanted to hug Cath for the intent, he also found himself wanting to shake her for not realizing how much they all needed to do this with Danny. 

That wasn’t right, though. He was the one who needed shaking. He could have and should have taken a pass. Steve flicked his eyes over the group. Overall, they were subdued. Having heard about the dirty bomb only well after Danny was out of danger and on his way to spend the night dancing with his best girl, Chin, Kono and Max still had remnants of stunned disbelief in their postures and expressions. It was like they weren’t one hundred percent sure Danny was as fine as Steve assured them he was. He didn’t blame them. Even right this very minute, Steve still wanted to bolt, find Danny, hug him again and not let go.

And Cath, well, she liked Danny but she didn’t really know Danny yet (he was starting to think none of them did); her sharp, dark eyes were on Steve. 

“Hey,” Cath said. She rested a hand on Steve’s forearm, thumb brushing a soft circle against his skin. “You okay in there?”

She knew him well. It had started to become apparent to Steve fairly recently that she knew him better than he had ever bothered to know her. He couldn’t look at her and know something big was eating at her, for example. He wasn’t sure what her favorite color was or how she liked her eggs. Which was stupid. If they were more than a _thing_ , he should know these things and more about her. He had no idea why he was letting stuff like this into his brain right now, only deep down he did know.

“Just tired,” he said with a watery smile. “Think I’m going to call it a night as soon as I finish this one.”

“Not a bad plan.” Cath smiled and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “You want to stay over?”

“No.” He shook his head, put his hand over hers for a second. “Not tonight.”

Cath furrowed her eyebrows and stared at him, and in this instance Steve could easily guess what she was thinking – that it wasn’t like him to turn down sex, or even simply comfortable sleep in excellent company. Especially after Captain Cockblock and his trusty sidekick Sweet Bumblebee had put the kibosh on his concerted efforts to get in Cath’s pants not that long ago. As far as Catherine was concerned, she probably thought _he_ thought he still had ground to recover from that fiasco, and she wasn’t exactly wrong on that count. It was … complicated, though, and about more than a release. He pulled a long swallow of his beer, ignored the sudden bitterness of it. He took another drink anyway, stared away from his friends at nothing at all and tried to not think for a bit. 

It didn’t really work. His brain wouldn’t stop whirring, all thoughts set to Danny. 

“I believe that it is time for me to bid farewell,” Max announced a few minutes later.

Steve came out of his reverie in time to see Max awkwardly stand and lean heavily on his cane. He knew well the way injured muscles stiffened up when left to rest for too long. He clambered to his own feet, a hand on Max’s shoulder.

“I’ll walk out with you,” he said before turning to his friends still seated. “I’m going to take off too, guys. It’s been a long day.”

“Hear, hear,” Chin murmured as he tipped his bottle in a halfhearted attempt at a toast. “To foiling terrorist plots.”

“To Danny,” Kono said half a beat later.

“To Danny,” Steve whispered, and leaned to kiss Catherine, who was staring at him again. She might have never stopped. His kiss landed on the corner of her lips and he didn’t bother to correct his aim or wait for her to. “I’ll see you.”

“See you,” she whispered. 

Steve gave a crooked smile, lifted his right hand to wave good night, and then he and Max headed out. He had no doubt the already mellow gathering would disband shortly after their departure. He wasn’t convinced he was alone in regretting the happy hour anyway. He gave Max a pat on the back after they reached the parking lot and left the medical examiner to shuffle to his car. He hopped into his truck and started home mindlessly, made good time and soon found himself standing in the middle of the living room, unsure of what to do next. He wasn’t actually tired. If anything, the two beers he had drunk hadn’t done a thing to settle nerves that were still nearly frayed.

Hours after standing there with Danny, facing death, and he couldn’t get it out of his head. It wasn’t like him. It was his _job_ to compartmentalize, move on to the next mission. He sighed and stared around him at the dark house.

He’d grown begrudgingly accustomed to his mother being there. Right now it was very quiet and he was alone and glad for it. He jerked slightly when his phone buzzed in his pocket as if it had picked up on some cue. He pulled it out, hoped it was Danny and was sorely disappointed when Doris’ name was on the screen. He didn’t answer, didn’t have time for that emotional wringer on top of the day he’d had, or the lecture on how she’d have done it better, been able to defuse the bomb herself, all of those challenging traits of hers he’d grown up thinking were because she was a teacher. He tossed the keys on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, slouching down so he could loll his head against the back. Steve stared at the ceiling, tried to clear his brain of useless clutter but couldn’t. There were things he had to unpack up there.

When he’d first come back to Hawai’i and, more to the point, decided to stay, Steve had thought about selling his childhood home. To him, it had been rife with ghosts and pain even before his father was brutally murdered in it. He couldn’t hear Mary’s laughter filling up the empty spaces, but her tears. He couldn’t smell family dinners, but bottles of booze drunk in the dark by a man so broken he couldn’t stand to have his children near him. It wasn’t his home then, just a collection of wood and plaster. Those first few nights had been sleepless, and while he wouldn’t say the worst he’d ever spent in his life, not exactly enjoyable. So, he’d studied the old décor, the dark shadows that could do with some light, considered what he would have to do to make the house marketable. 

Except then things in his life had gotten crazier. Danny Williams, who he’d only forced onto the task force out of spite and that indefinable _thing_ he sparked in Steve, happened. Danny had shown up a couple of times like he was the one who owned the place, and somehow in all of that Steve forgot about selling. He made some modifications to the house anyway, some minor and gradual and some larger ones spurred by a home invasion of ridiculous proportions. Before he knew it, it was home again. Before he knew it, his new little family with Danny at the helm started filling the rooms with other memories, ones he now clung to with a fervent hope they wouldn’t go sour on him. 

He knew how easily good turned into bad, how the walls of a home could seem solid one moment and hollow the next. Steve tried to imagine what this place would be without everything his family brought with them during each of their visits. Kono’s raucous laughter, and Mary’s too, again. Chin’s sly humor and, shit, the warmth that had enveloped him and Malia in everything they did, now bittersweet but never bad. Kamekona’s absurdity and Cath’s take-no-bull hotness. And Danny’s … everything, really, and he realized now how pivotal Danny’s everything was to Steve’s home. A bomb and the threat of death weren’t what made him understand that, but now he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. Borrowed time, like hell. Time was time. 

Bottom line was, he had to make sure the repairs stuck. Of course, the restoration of this old place had little to do with renovations and deferred maintenance to roof and walls. It, in fact, had nothing to do with the house at all, but with him. Steve hadn’t thought himself a fixer-upper until he’d gone into the reserves and stayed here. He knew now that he had proverbial groundwater in the foundation, termites in the walls and that both were pernicious and recurring. He was only standing at all because of friends who had become his family more than his own mother felt right now. Because of Danny. Even with the rebuild well underway, it had always seemed like he was the most rundown person in the world. That wasn’t true. That was a stupid assumption to make. 

It turned out some people simply hid their structural damage far, far more effectively than he’d ever been able to. 

Some people were Danny, whose façade was so colorful and vibrant that it was often difficult to see anything beyond it. Steve had seen that day on the ocean and again today. He’d seen cracks here and there, tiny fissures that would have revealed so much if he’d been smart enough to look. God, he’d had no real idea of how much was behind Danny’s walls and he felt … as the relief had left him weak-kneed and teary-eyed, he’d felt Danny’s arms around him, holding _him_ up, reassuring _him_ , as if Steve had been the only one in danger of dying. He felt sick all over again with how close he’d come to losing the one person he absolutely had to have in his life.

Steve sat up straight. He needed air. He needed to not have perfect recall of that petrified look on Danny’s face, the pained grimaces. He was about to crawl out of his skin. He got to his feet, ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t stay here safe and mostly sound in this house that Danny built. It wasn’t about him or his figurative house, and he’d spent too much time thinking about it as if it was. Another beer might settle him, third time being the charm and all, so that he might be able to do what he’d waited way too long to do. He headed for the kitchen, grabbed the six-pack he always had on hand (thanks to Danny, much of the time) and stepped onto the lanai. 

He sat in one of the chairs near the edge of the beach and listened to the waves roll in, longed for the sound to calm him the way they had so often in the past. It didn’t work. He couldn’t stop thinking about what it must have taken for Danny to carry the load he did for so long, how carefully he’d padded a persona from genuine qualities to hide what lay beneath. Grace, of course, had to be his foundation; that was obvious. But Steve wanted to believe, selfishly, that maybe somewhere in there he’d managed to open a stuck window, or hang a tacky painting to cover a hole in the wall himself. Jesus, he was a mess and the metaphor was getting old. 

Steve opened the beer and took a long swallow, pictured Danny trying to dance with the one person _he_ absolutely had to have in his life. It was a good image to have in his head after the long day, one he’d actually have liked to seen in real time and not to tease Danny about later. For the first time since he’d heard Danny’s nervous laughter in his ear and had Danny’s strong arms wrapped around him he felt okay. Better, anyway. Danny was all right. Steve had to remember that was what mattered the most. Not this existential crisis of his coming to a head for very obvious, predictable reasons. 

Approaching footsteps from behind pulled his attention from his thoughts. Figuring it was Doris, he closed his eyes and braced himself. Talk about conflict of emotions. Steve wasn’t prepared for the voice that greeted him.

“You got one for me?” Danny asked, amusement and fatigue clear in his welcome voice. “It’s not exactly like me buying you one, but it’ll do, yeah?”

“Danny,” Steve said. “Hey.”

He pretended his heart hadn’t started pounding, and not just from being startled. Danny had indeed worn a suit to Gracie’s dance, and still had it on. There was no plunging neckline in sight, but still an ample show of the chest hair Steve couldn’t help but tease him about before. He looked … Steve swallowed hard. Danny looked amazing and exhausted and, better than anything, alive. 

“Sure, sit. All danced out?”

“I said it before, I’ll say it again, I am a dancing fool.” Danny eased into the other chair, waggled his fingers for a beer. “I’ll have you know, Gracie and I were the best father-daughter dancing duo there.”

“Oh, man, that’s sad,” Steve said with a chuckle. He opened another bottle and passed it off to Danny. “Really terrible.”

Danny gave a little giggle. 

“Okay, John Travolta I am not. It was great, though. I needed to make it to that dance so, so much I can’t even tell you.”

“Yeah, I know you did.” Steve thought about the two Graces in Danny’s life, one gone in a horribly violent way and one threatened to be taken from him. He thought he should have never, ever told Danny that Vegas should remain an option, knowing now what he did about Danny and his internal structure. “Not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing here now? You look like you could sleep for days.”

“Well,” Danny said. He cleared his throat and took a swig of beer while he also kicked off his shiny shoes to reveal brightly striped socks. “I probably should be tired, but I’m too … today was … ”

Danny got a far-off look in his eyes and stopped talking, unusual for him to become tongue-tied but not really so much, considering everything. He focused instead on taking his silly socks off and wiggling his toes against the grass, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

“Today definitely was,” Steve said, transfixed by those toes for a moment before he pulled his gaze up to stare at Danny’s profile. 

“I needed this, too, I guess, is what I’m saying.” Danny shrugged. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here. Thought maybe you’d … anyway, you are and I’m glad. Might be neurotic, but I needed to be with someone who was there, and you were, all the way.”

“I wasn’t going to leave you there alone, Danny.”

“I know,” Danny said with a smile aimed more at the ocean than Steve. 

They sat and said nothing else for a few minutes. The silence felt fraught to Steve. That was his own fault and in his own imagination. He fought the urge to haul Danny to his feet for that hug he’d longed for all night, to make sure that Danny was as solid as he looked. He wanted to talk about what happened and all the ways it had changed how he understood Danny’s place in his life, how it changed the way he saw Danny, period. He also didn’t want to talk at all. Beside him, Danny fidgeted until he finally set his bottle on the arm of the chair and stood. Steve watched Danny slip out of the suit coat and fold it over the back of the chair.

“Doris around?” Danny asked.

“No, I don’t know where she is,” Steve said. His mouth started to go dry when Danny unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, then pulled his shirttails free of his trousers. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting more comfortable, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” Steve took a drink, took a breath. “It’s a nice suit. You wear it well.”

“Thanks, babe. Along with being the best dancers there tonight, Gracie and I put everyone else to shame, stylistically speaking.”

“I have no doubt about that,” Steve said, smiling.

Danny rolled up his sleeves, then bent over and did the same to his pants. He winked at Steve and sauntered toward the water. He ventured in to mid calf and just stood there, arms crossed so the fabric of his shirt stretched across his broad back.

Steve watched for a moment or two, perplexed as he often was when it came to Danny. Danny had always seemed so straightforward to him, but now Steve knew better. He stared at the back of Danny’s head, the swirl of curls tamed into some kind of oddly beautiful submission and felt that surge of heady relief and admiration and gratefulness he’d experienced as Danny raced to get to that important dance. He tugged at the laces of his own shoes, yanked them and his socks off. He joined Danny in the water.

“Your pants are getting wet,” Danny said mildly, after hardly a beat and without looking down.

“Don’t care. What are we doing out here?”

Danny sighed.

“Being.”

Steve nudged Danny with his elbow and relished the warmth of Danny leaning into him. He felt steady, the way Danny always made him feel and he hoped it went both ways.

“You saved me today, Steve. You gave me at least one more day with Grace, and I have to thank you for that.”

“I think the bomb tech did all the work,” Steve said automatically.

“Don’t be a smartass. I mean it. I would have _lost it_ if you hadn’t stuck around. I would be on Max’s damn table right now, in pieces and full of nails and ball bearings.” Danny looked at him, eyes dark. “You kept my foundation solid. You always do, actually, and I have no clue how half the time. You just do.”

Steve couldn’t help but gape a little at that, and at the soft smile Danny was tossing at him.

“You scared me, Danny,” he said, not entirely what he thought was going to come out of his mouth. “You have no idea how much.”

“I think I have some semblance.” Danny pressed himself closer. He took a shaky breath and shivered, though the breeze coming off the ocean was warm. “I wasn’t the only one standing there, remember, and I wasn’t the only one facing his mortality again.” 

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“I know,” Danny said. “I know what you meant.”

“Do you?” 

“I saw your face. I see it now.”

Danny turned to him, then, and pulled him into a hug as easily as they’d wrapped their arms around each other before. No posturing, no attempt to disguise the emotion behind it. Steve tucked his face into the crook of Danny’s neck, smelled the clean scent of Danny instead of fear-laced sweat and he wanted to stay that way forever. Danny swayed a little after a long moment and pulled away from him only far enough to look him directly in the eye.

“That day I told you about, it was one of the worst and one of the best of my life. It was the end of the world as I knew it and the beginning at the same time.” Danny looked at him, eyes hooded and dark. “And so much bigger than my own sad little story.”

“Maybe,” Steve said. “But it’s stuff like that which makes a person. It made you who you are, and Danny, Jesus, I wish it hadn’t happened that way, but I also can’t help but be glad for it.”

Danny’s eyes lit up, crinkled when he smiled. Steve flicked his attention to Danny’s mouth, then back up and he saw something else in those eyes now. Danny’s right hand rubbed up and down Steve’s back. Steve leaned closer, on autopilot.

“Tell me what Catherine is to you,” Danny whispered all of a sudden.

“A friend,” Steve said, no hesitation, no awkward attempt to define her as anything more. “You heard that phone call, D.”

Danny chuckled, but only briefly. He chewed on the corner of his lower lip and considered Steve carefully.

“Does she know that?”

“I think so. Or she will.”

Danny nodded. He tilted his head to the side slightly.

“Tell me what I am to you.”

“Everything, Danny,” Steve said, no hesitation.

When Danny kissed him, it was with that same full-force energy that must surely be what kept Danny’s walls from crumbling, and most of Steve’s too. Before he lost himself to the sensation of tongue and teeth and beard burn, Steve finally figured out that they’d been building their homes together all along, and the cost to cure for both of them was worth every single penny. Between the two of them, there was minor structural damage, easily fixed. 

Solid foundation.


End file.
